Tokyo Escorts: Thinking, Not Always Joking, About What Video Games Can Be
I have expressed, for many years, my opinion that digital video game simulations of men stealing cars and braining prostitutes are less likely to turn children into prostitute-braining car thieves than The Legend of Zelda is likely to turn a kid into a kleptomaniac. A simulation of the real world, thanks to effects like The Uncanny Valley, is easier for children to identify as ridiculous. Something simultaneously direct and abstract can create behaviours that will eventually be impossible to quash. Remember the first time you, controlling a Link equipped with a lantern that can light torches, walked to the end of a dead-end tunnel and saw four unlit torches and a locked door, and made that wordless, logicless mental connection: “If I light these four torches, that door will open.”

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